I'm one of those at EWNCW creative which liked DB, but at times he hadn't worked his ass as much as he can. But never, ever, turned him down because "I didn't liked him". He has it, but sometimes his promos weren't as good as they should be. RL can get in the middle, so I don't make it a big deal.

Join the Best e-fed, EWNCW!! Send a PM to Tommy Thunder, Kingstrem, TheJosephBanks, S.E.Zero, TTC or me filling the form you'll find in the Inferno Thread.

TJB: Hahah, I heard. Yeah, with the Bmac thing. Shame how that worked out.

And it was, RTE was running fine. The big ship was the one with the massive hole in it.

Powellson: Absolutely MASSIVE hole. But, judging by TT's recent post things appear to be in better condition over there. At least outwardly anyway. I just read his post regarding the status of RTE still being EWNCW's bitch. Was that your choice or was you forced to stay?

TJB: Awww, Powellson, you are too kind! I know you, and several others actually, want RTE to go solo. But no, I wasn't forced. I stayed for several reasons. If I wanted to run a solo one, EWNCW would either go down, or I'd start a whole new fed. Out of respect, I wouldn't take something that belongs to them and rip it out of their hands anyway. But I reckon all this will be covered!

But Tommy made me a good deal, which was wholly similar to a deal someone else made me. And I took it, instead of the other one, for one reason.

Powellson: Well at least you wasn't forced into anything. You know I would have stood up for you and defended your honour, Banksy.

Obviously you now have to tell my wonderful readers who that other deal came from, and also what the reason was that you never took them up on their offer.

TJB: Hahah, I know you would and other people would have too. I'd have also had to deal with a roster who were oh so hoping to develop and make it to EWNCW one day.

Well the first was, essentially, a hypothetical from IWA, more specifically Benny. Me and Benny have been friends since I returned as TJB.

We're not super close or anything, but we catch up and chat sometimes, mostly efed stuff. He came to me and said, hey if EWNCW goes down, what if, hypothetically, RTE became IWA"s third brand. He told me I could keep fight night and every PPV, 3-4 matches from RTE could be on the PPV. Which was a good deal.

That got me thinking, which I'll explain in a bit if you ask the right question.

The second deal came from Broc, and he offered to take in RTE with HWA. HWA's history, my booking genius, we could make it great. I would be getting Anarchy, and he'd help me with matches. He told me the RTE roster wasn't big enough to support a third brand. 12 singles, five teams, five women. Not counting the ones who hadn't debuted - which would take my numbers to 19 singles, 5 teams, 6 women.

Funnily enough, none of those are bots. Which means I have more actual player characters than Rage AND inferno, or would following the recent Fight Night. Maybe. Haven't decided yet.

But yeah, I'd have gotten Anarachy. Sully offered me a tour of their HQ, which I didn't take him up on.

SWA legit did not offer me a deal, they wanted me to be solo.

Powellson: Let me tell you, if you took out Broc and Sullys characters, the RTE roster is bigger than the Havoc and Anarchy rosters combined. You definitely dodged a bullet by not going to HWA.

IWA PPV's are already overflowing with matches, so I'm also glad you never decided to go there. They are struggling to fit everyone they have on their shows as it is from what I can tell, so it's probably best you never went there either.

Kash has told me personally he didn't want RTE to be SWA's or anyone else's developmental eFed. He said he has a lot of time for you, and wanted to see you stand on your own. I wasn't surprised. He had already turned down MrOMB's offer of having his yet-to-even-debut-eFed NGW as SWA's feeder group.

However, you have decided to stay with EWNCW despite those offers due to loyalty and respect. What I want to know is, will the talent who get moved up be your choice, or TT's?

TJB: Well, if I had of taken Sully up on his offer, I'd probably know that for sure. But again, for reasons, I didn't.

IWA, I think, does a good job limiting their PPVs and not trying to fit everyone on there which is something I think every place should do.

Don't worry, SWA will come around though.

Hopefully, it'll be us coming together, sitting down, and talking it out. I'm looking out for RTE and myself, number one. I have a good roster, most everyone - if they have a promo - gets them in on time. If I have plans, I have plans and I'm not exactly a fan of them being uprooted for a transplant. However, if they can work on both until I can give them a proper send off(and if they want to do that), then that's fine too. I plan on asking any talent that is considered for a move up if they want to go, or if they want to stay down with me in RTE, as well. It'll be a decision for everyone involved.

I think Bear will be involved moreso if they are going to Inferno and Tommy for Rage.

Powellson: In the past I've heard rumours of who gets brought up to be all TT's decision, so it's nice to hear that it will be a group decision.

Given that RTE is still a developmental eFed, what are your plans to help develop the roster that you have?

TJB: It's in a weird position between developmental and third brand. I think calling it developmental is a bit stupid. You've been around, how much real development do you see? It's essentially a third brand for the new guys that they don't have a place for.

But as for your question, the answer is simple. I've told them, and made it clear in the thread, if you want to win you have to outpromo whoever you are feuding with. That's how I doing it with my characters, win or lose, I'm damn sure going to be confident in the fact that it came down to promos. Well, hopefully. Never know, some people may go by story over promos.

But yeah, I want them to do great promos. Feud winning promos. Fight Night match winning promos. That's how they are going to develop.

Plus, I've been in contact with some people about coming down for guest spots. No longer than a month to work with someone. Jman, Mike Hawk, Ma$$dinerno, all have agreed to come down. I'm hoping to get more guys coming down from SWA, IWA, HWA.

Clark Powellson
E-Fed Insider Extraordinaire

"I'm here to find out the whose who, whose hot, whose not and why not."

Powellson: As I pointed out in my interview with Bear, I'm not a fan of the best promo wins style of booking, but given the nature of RTE being a place for new guys, I can see the logic behind it in a way.

Tell me, Banksy, is this desire to have the best promo guy win their matches something that has grown out of your own personal disappointment of seeing your characters lose after you felt you out-promo'd someone?

TJB: I understand that point of view, and I maintain that sometimes story will override promos. I'm not an unreasonable guy.

Yes. Definitely is. Whether or not I DID outpromo them is for the crowd and bookers to decide. But they'll tell you - promos go a long way to whether or not you get a push, or something like that. I think I do pretty good with my promos. I felt like I was knocking it out of the park in my recent feuds with Mr. Torture and Shining Light. And they did damn good, so I figure - if pushes are really affected by promo ability - then I'll step it up and really find out.

That's what I want to do down in RTE. If I'm going to tell you it's going to be this way, I want it to be that way. If Promos get you pushed, then why not focus on that.

Powellson: I know that very creative team has their own way of doing things. I imagine it mostly boils down to head bookers having their own favourites. It's nice to see you at least have your own booking philosophy.

Speaking of favourites. Who are your favourites on your roster?

TJB: Whose champion? Lol.

But no, seriously, I like them all. I'm a fan of the change Kid Justice went through, and as a fan of darker characters Children of Chaos, Graves and Jaxxon come to mind as well, but also Alza and the Syndicate coming in as well. Everyone is good, and should be getting better.

Powellson: I think that should be your own personal mission: help your roster improve.

You can call RTE whatever you want, but ultimately it will always be a brand where users place their characters to develop before Tommy, Bear, or yourself decide that they need to move up. The fact that you yourself use the term "down here" speaks volumes in regard to RTE's standing in the EWNCW universe. For you to not do everything in your power to help your roster improve it would be a disservice to the whole point of RTE.

TJB: That is my mission. By the time they leave, they'll be able to work with anyone on the main roster and put some of them to shame.

As far as referring to it as 'down here', I do that because that's how it's been built. It gives me a reason to want to improve it. If it were already 'up here', I wouldn't have as much incentive to do better. By the time I'm done though, it'll be the place people want to come to and be giving Inferno and Rage PPVs a run for their money. There is a reason Tommy would always get someone else to do RTE instead of me when I was on Inferno.

Powellson: Because he knows that if anyone could upstage them it would be you?

TJB: Well that's up for the people to decide right? I can say yeah, I think I can upstage him, but does it mean I did? No. It means I'm confident and yes I think I can do it, but ultimately the readers decide.

What it was, if I'm remembering correctly, is that Inferno was doing good with me at the helm of it and he didn't want me to go down to RTE, which would leave Inferno in a bit of a pickle.

I'm good enough that he asks me to come back whenever there is an opening.

Powellson: Now that Bear is in charge of Inferno I can't see him asking you for that gig any time in the near future.

Something just hit me, though.

Going back to all those offers.

You knew there was no intention of actually closing EWNCW, so, with that in mind, there couldn't have been any way you were actually going to going to accept any of those offers was there?
TJB: No, but I get asked to come back to writing for the main roster.

No, actually, it's a funny story. So everyone found out the shit was a work. But before that I did get the offers. The first one came from Benny and I got to thinking. Well, why not milk this? What sense does it make for EWNCW to be closing, but one of their properties is just continuing on.

So I talked to Tommy, and eventually Bear got involved, and they were NOT fans of my plan to try and hook HWA into offering RTE a spot. To them, they looked at it as, okay... that's just going to piss people off, because you're actively seeking out feds to offer them RTE.

Which wasn't true, kinda. While, yes, it was my idea for HWA to offer RTE a deal, you can ask Broc and Sully, I did not go to them. BMac did, after I told him too. ;D. They were okay with the risk that they'd be mad about EWNCW, but RTE being involved was just too much. "Why risk pissing them off even more?"

But back to that, I looked at it is, you're worried they are going to be upset at this? Are you not doing the same thing? I don't think people are going to be upset that you're also offering the pool house, as part of your 'work' that the house is being sold, as much as they are about telling them the house is getting sold. In other words, I'm positive more people are going to be upset about EWNCW going under than RTE being on the market. To this day, no one has come to me upset. At most all we've gotten is... "So, are you standalone or back with EWNCW?" But I guess we're going to find out how many EWNCW people were pissed off when the bios come in, I suppose.

Powellson: The thing that I don't think people would have enjoyed was the fact that the whole thing was a work. Tommy claimed he was stepping down, when in reality he was just taking a small break until BMac did what he was going to be doing and then just step back into the driving seat. Whatever the case is I'm sure people will put their names back in the hat in the hopes that things have been changed for the better.

How about you?

Do you have high hopes for the future of EWNCW? Will the changes that TT has said are happening help them out? Or is it just going to be the same old stuff?

TJB: I think the EWNCW stuff will be what they didn't enjoy. I was careful not to promise anything, and not go into their HQ's.

So, you know, toss up.

I think they'll do a little bit to change. Things like new announcers, with more personality, new titles, hopefully. A women's division when I've been advocating for... happens when I'm down in RTE, so I might be getting jacked. Things like that are fine, but what's really going to make or break them? Decide if it's same old, same old?

Storylines.

Me and Ka$h talked and came to a mutual conclusion: Point A to Point B, simple and done won't work. They need a big storyline.

Something people want to follow. Something that is overall simple, but complex.

Powellson: So, a big storyline would help things there? I agree that that's what they need to do, but, it's a case of actually getting things right. Rehashing old WWE/WCW/nWo angles won't cut it. I'm remaining a sceptic, but at the same time hope they do hit upon something that will help them.

Why isn't Black Angel returning to EWNCW and how did they feel about that?

Clark Powellson
E-Fed Insider Extraordinaire

"I'm here to find out the whose who, whose hot, whose not and why not."

TJB: It would. I can't remember the last one they had. I had an idea for the mid-card to form and feud with the main eventers, essentially, a way to shuffle the standings a bit. Didn't go through.

I lost feeling for Black Angel. I'd been advocating for him for so long, and kept getting pushed back from it, though people loved it - so they would be shocked when he returned. That when he came back, and I knew how he was coming back and I wish it didn't happen that way, and then found out he wasn't on the show due to being told NOT to come, though he just fucked over a main event, I decided - let's let him rest.

BMac, actually, agreed to let Kaige Chamberlain who was going to align himself with BMac's character take Black Angel out. And then I talked to Bear, and I think it disappointed him a bit, but he agreed to keep Angel off as well. I don't think Tommy knows, but that was mostly due to Angel being on Inferno, so I went to Bear.

Powellson: Back to RTE. Who is officially on your team?

TJB: My creative team?

The former owner, well before me, Vandarius. His real life got hectic, and I took over. We also have G.G.G., who writes matches. Really good matches.

Powellson: What are so good about them?

TJB: Well, they do really good matches. I mean, I handle the booking, since VanD is busy IRL, and G.G.G. has IRL stuff too, so they stick to writing matches. I mean, if they go off somewhere else for creative, it's going to be a big benefit to the place they go too.

Powellson: Haha you might have just put them on the market for the other eFed creative teams to try to poach.

Back to EWNCW. These new changes that have been promised. Do you have any idea who has proposed what? Any of your input in there?

TJB: I've got them tied up like the man from Misery. Ain't no escaping here!

yeah, I know who suggested what, but you don't. ;D As far as my ideas. The PPV match limitation. The PPV's vendetta and GttB being switched around. The women's division which I've been advocating for, but I think someone else may have suggested it when ideas were pitched. The TV title as well, but we'll see which idea they use.

We'll have to see about War Games though, a couple suggestions came in for that.

Powellson: If you don't tell me someone will, not to worry.

Why are you so high on a woman's division?

TJB: Eventually, anyway. Hahah.

Well, I look at it like this. Whether or not people like them, women wrestlers are a bit of a staple. IWA's Women's division is top notch. Baddest bit-- women in the game today. EWNCW is supposed to be the original efed, right? Why be so far behind the curve? RTE has one, why not the main roster? IWA has one. Why not EWNCW? It makes little to no sense that they don't have one.

Powellson: Hey, I always get what I want.

There only really seem to be a few people who are any good at creating women's characters, but let's hope that people are inspired to make them now that EWNCW are going to be implementing a woman's division. I shall reserve judgement until I see how well the execution goes down.

What was the logic behind flipping Vendetta and GttG around?

TJB: You and me both.

Well, it's simple. We were deciding on big PPVs for EWNCW, I originally suggested 4, and someone else suggested three. We only have 12 PPVs and 4 is one-third of that and that is too many, I guess? So we went with three. Destiny's Calling, Glory to the Brave, and No Guts, No Glory.

So it came down to spacing. Put 3 lesser/B-level, whatever PPVs between the Big 3 for even spacing. Vendetta and GttB being where they were, it wasn't happening that way. So. Switch.

Powellson: What is going to separate the B shows from the A shows?

TJB: Hopefully booking. Hahah.

Well, the B-shows have a lesser amount of matches than the A-Shows, and the A-shows will also feature some RTE matches as well.

Powellson: Speaking of booking, who is the better booker; Tommy or Bear?

TJB: No idea, I sort of stopped reading Rage for a long time, so if I'm honest I'd have to give the nod to Bear, out of pure recent familiarity. I think both tend to stay to the basics, which there is nothing wrong with, but doesn't provide a lot of excitement.

Powellson: I'll stay neutral and say they are as bad as each other haha.

I have been speaking to Bear recently, though, and have been encouraging him to really shake things up when he brings Inferno back. I am hoping he takes some of what I said on board.

One thing that a few people have said is that the first thing that was changed about Rage and Inferno should have been their names themselves. What is your stance on this?

TJB: I don't mind the names staying the same.

Let me ask you, I give you a shitty Big Mac. You don't like it. I give you this new burger, called it a McBurger. You open it, it's the same Big Mac just with a new name, how are you going to feel?

Powellson: Seriously? I'm not feeling that analogy playa..

To answer your question, though, yes, it would still be a shitty Big Mac, so I would be confused to say the very least.

On the flip side..

To use your burger analogy, if Micky-D's changed the Big Mac sauce to BBQ sauce, and replaced the beef burgers with chicken burgers, would it still be a Big Mac?

How you put it also suggests that the only thing that be changed is the name. The names of the shows would have been the first things I would have changed, but certainly not the last.

TJB: That's it though, isn't it? I changed the name of the product, but kept it the same. A name change doesn't mean much, I just changed the name of the Big Mac, but gave you the same product. And you're confused.

But in yours, you're changing the thing that matters. The content of the burger.

That applies to Rage and Inferno, if you change the name and not the content, it doesn't mean anything. But if you change the content, then you can keep the same name, but people are getting a far superior product.

And that's what you asked about, my stance on the names. :P Keep up, Clarky! As far as other stuff changing, then that's when it really matters, at least to me.

Powellson: I know what I asked you, you're obviously missing the point.

Basically what you're saying is, you don't agree that the names of the shows should have been changed?

TJB: I'm saying I don't really care. Rage, Inferno, whatever they want to change it to. That doesn't matter to me. What matters is what they DO to prove they are different. A name change is a foot in the right direction, but what they do with the content is going to be what makes or breaks any changes.

Powellson: For me a name change would have been a clear sign that they had every intention to change things up. The changes that have been revealed to be happening so far doesn't exactly excite me if I'm honest.

Speaking of exciting. Were you excited by what BMac had planned for EWNCW? Or, is it a case of whatever he did wouldn't have mattered because they would have probably been made irrelevant by the overhaul that would have surely followed?

Clark Powellson
E-Fed Insider Extraordinaire

"I'm here to find out the whose who, whose hot, whose not and why not."